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Monday, May 8, 2017

Gas Power Developers Fighting What They Call a FirstEnergy Bailout

From Business Journal Daily:

Executives and organizations that support the development of independent energy production are calling two bills introduced in the Ohio General Assembly nothing less than a $5 billion bailout for utility giant FirstEnergy Corp. that will saddle residents with higher energy costs.

FirstEnergy says the bills, collectively called the Zero Emissions Nuclear Resource Program, help to preserve nuclear energy as a vital, reliable power source that provides electricity to millions of Ohioans each day, not to mention hundreds of jobs in the industry.

The debate essentially pits large utilities such as FirstEnergy against smaller, independent, non-utilities such as Clean Energy Future, which plans to invest more than $1 billion in the region to build two combined-cycle energy production plants in Lordstown.

Siderewicz says that FirstEnergy’s program – encapsulated in Senate Bill 128 and House Bill 178 – essentially grants the utility a bailout akin to $340 million annually over 16 years, or $5.4 billion over the life of the program.